


Hourglass Heart

by bixgirl1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Partners, Cuddling, Explicit Sex, Friends to Lovers, M/M, More Pining, Oh my god they were flatmates, Pining, References to Draco/OMC's, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 12:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bixgirl1/pseuds/bixgirl1
Summary: It only happened once — depending on how Harry counted.





	Hourglass Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiftylinguini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftylinguini/gifts).



> For my darling friend [shiftylinguini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftylinguini/pseuds/shiftylinguini/works?fandom_id=136512), whose writing never fails to thrill me, and whose open heart and good nature helped me become part of this fandom. Happy (only slightly belated, yay!) Birthday!!!! <33333
> 
> Many, _many_ thanks to [onereader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereader/pseuds/onereader) for the swift, lovely beta that cleaned this up for me. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

It’s half one when Draco pours himself into their flat. Harry tucks his wand back into the sofa and watches Draco pry off his shoes, stumbling into the table where they keep their mail. He then promptly kicks it for getting in his way. 

The furniture’s always at fault when Draco’s had too much to drink, something that used to annoy Harry but he now finds annoyingly charming, like how Draco occasionally drops his clothing in a trail, a drunken map of his jaunts around their flat for Harry to decipher. Harry has just enough time to think, _It wasn’t supposed to be like this,_ before Draco interrupts by climbing over him. In nothing but his pants and one sock, he takes his time arranging himself against Harry, knees dangling over the arm of the sofa. His head nudges Harry’s arm until Harry lifts it so Draco can drop his head onto Harry’s thigh. 

“Mmm. Ta, Potter.”

He smells like whiskey sours and sweat, like spunk and a cologne with sweeter notes than the one he uses. Harry cards his fingers through Draco’s damp, messy hair — purple-tipped this time, Harry sees, prettier with his moonlight blond than the green was — and says, “I’m not waiting up to let you in the next time you’re too drunk to unward the door. _I’m_ not planning on Owling in ‘hungover’ tomorrow morning.”

Draco yawns and stretches, lazy as any cat, his slender, pale biceps bunching, and peeks one eye open to see if Harry means it. Harry tries to look serious, threatening even, but after a beat Draco sends him a cocky grin and fists a hand in Harry’s shirt, pulling him down. His kiss is sloppy on Harry’s cheek, warm and damp. Harry swallows the stone in his throat as he straightens.

“It’s a wasted effort trying to manipulate me, and we’re not scheduled to go in until eleven,” Draco says. “And you’d wait up regardless.” Harry feels himself flush, but Draco’s already moved on, rolling to his side to face the telly. “Did you record Coronation Street?”

Harry sighs and Summons the remote, passing it over. Draco hums with satisfaction and settles his head a little deeper into Harry’s lap, short locks of his blond-and-purple hair strewn over Harry’s flies. They’ve both gotten good at ignoring any accidental biological responses, and Draco gives no indication of even noticing Harry’s slowly hardening cock, except to push his skull back against it with a grunt as he blinks blearily at the telly and tries to get situated. 

“Did you have fun?” Harry asks at the first advert.

“You know me,” Draco says in answer. 

Harry does — but sometimes, with a tug of guilt, wishes he didn’t. Not so well, anyway. It’s a problem he never expected to encounter when they were paired to room together as Auror trainees. Back then, his primary concern had been not getting kicked from the programme for strangling Draco in his sleep. Or in the canteen. Or on the duelling mats. Really, anywhere; strangling Draco had been at the forefront of his mind most days. And then… it wasn’t.

To this day, he can’t pinpoint when things changed, or why. It wasn’t anything big, no grand apology, he knows that much. Maybe it was the time he accidentally made too much coffee and, instead of throwing it out, poured Draco a cup. Or the time Draco leaned down over Harry’s shoulder while he was working the crossword and, rather than insulting Harry, said, “Pharetra,” explaining, at Harry’s startled look, “Four down, eight letters starting with a P, ‘the sensation of magic’; Pharetra,” before ambling away. Other things. In all likelihood, it was an amalgamation of events, their fates dovetailing to such a degree that, when Harry cast his mind over their history, his first thought was never about what they used to be to each other but what they were now.

And sometimes — more often of late, when Draco comes home smelling of someone else — what they might have been. 

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this_ , Harry thinks again. He touches the perfect slant of Draco’s brow, slightly wicked even in his sleep, and smooths his hair back as Draco starts to snore.

* * *

It’s four in the morning when they get home. As in most areas of their life, they’ve got their routine after a night shift down to a fine art: Draco pulls bread or eggs from the pantry and starts filling the kettle while Harry turns on the hob and, based on Draco’s choices, begins prepping either cheese toasties or a full fry up. They had the opportunity to have lunch for once, so Harry’s unsurprised that tonight it’s toasties. He ducks under Draco’s raised arm to fetch butter and cheese from the cooler as Draco finishes with the kettle at the sink, and then reaches past Draco to the drawer with the knives with the full expectation Draco will lean back from the hob to allow him room, which he does.

It’s like a dance, this thing they do, a low-grade sort of Legilimency that comes from being attuned to one another. It was that very seamless teamwork in regards to their domestic habits and preferences that had been Harry’s deciding factor for asking Draco if he wanted to look for a place together when it came time to vacate the trainee dorms, not that he’d been too worried about a refusal. Draco had been dropping snide little hints he might be receptive to an offer for months anyway: _I’m honestly worried that when I’m gone you’ll poison yourself making that swill you call tea, but I suppose at least you’re a fair enough cook that you won’t starve while you do it._

Hermione had given Harry a hard, worried look when he told her about their plans, but refused to comment on their arrangement. Ron, however, had pulled him aside and shocked Harry by only saying, “You sure about this? Malfoy, 24/7?”

It wouldn’t be 24/7, but that was beside the point. Harry had chosen training incoming Aurors for his discretionary duties, and Draco had a perverse interest in the administrative side of things — his negligent attitude towards housekeeping aside, Draco had one of the most organised minds Harry ever encountered — and that alone guaranteed they’d be out of each other’s way when they weren’t on patrol. The point was that Harry _was_ sure. So sure he couldn’t verbalise why to Ron for fear of hurting his feelings; sometime in their second year of rooming together, Harry had started to _miss_ Draco when he wasn’t around, in a way that didn’t apply even to his closest friends. After two years of being in near-constant company, Harry only wanted to see Draco more, and that feeling hasn’t abated in the three years since. 

They eat largely in silence, but when they’re done, Draco pushes his plate away with a sigh and leans back in his chair, stretching out his leg to prop his bare foot on Harry’s knee. He’s the most tactile person Harry knows, and his shamelessness about encroaching on someone’s space increases exponentially the more he trusts them. For a while, Harry tried not to let it mean as much to him as it does — not until, for a while, it was gone. 

He takes Draco’s foot in his hand, skimming his fingertips over the arch until Draco’s toes curl, then starts kneading gently. 

Draco’s head falls back, exposing the line of his throat. “You know,” he murmurs, eyes closed, “if you ever decide to retire from public service, you could potentially make a wealthy living doing that. Charge people a hundred Galleons a go.”

“Then why have I been doing it for you for free?” Harry asks, and Draco smirks.

“Because I am the very essence of humble appreciation,” Draco drawls, “which is good for your bottomless ego.”

“You owe me twelve thousand Galleons,” Harry says, feeling lost when Draco’s smirk transforms into a real smile.

* * *

They leave space between their bodies when they go dancing, their friendship too hard-won to jeopardise again. But Harry thinks about it. He thinks about it all the time; Draco looks like sin on the dance floor, skin glistening with sweat, eyes smoky dark and teasing promises that tempt Harry to wind a hard arm around Draco’s waist and plaster them together. Harry’s sure Draco’s blindness doesn’t extend so far to not see the desire on Harry’s face — for a grinding dance that demonstrates the chasm of want he feels, to touch and be touched, to take Draco to bed and have him, or give himself over to be had — but Draco never fills the space between them, either. Only when the song ends does he lean his deceptively skinny frame into Harry and, sly and smiling, orders, “Say it.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You were right, this is fun.” 

“If you could just start admitting that at the outset, it’d be really helpful.”

“Would you like me to call you ‘your Highness’ while I’m at it?”

“If only,” Draco says, peeling his shirt from his chest to fan himself. 

Harry doesn’t mean to, when it happens — and though it feels a paltry excuse, it does seem to be the way of things for him. But there comes a moment, the same one he knows to always guard against, when Draco’s attention swerves. Harry isn’t even looking at him when it happens, merely feels a prickle on the nape of his neck and turns from ordering their drinks to see Draco lift an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth at a dark-haired wizard in a booth across the way. 

It’s the moment Harry is supposed put his mouth to Draco’s ear and say that he’s tired. The moment for him to wave off Draco’s protest and accept a distracted kiss on the cheek before making his way through the crush to the cool night air alone.

“Don’t,” Harry says. Draco glances at him, then again. His smile turns vaguely quizzical, and then fades altogether. Stomach rolling, Harry opens his mouth to take it back. “Don’t.”

Draco flicks a glance to the wizard, a frown appearing between his eyes. “Don’t what,” he says flatly. Unamused. 

Harry swallows. “Please.”

“Harry—”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Harry says on a rush of air. Draco takes a step back, complexion bleeding of the heightened colour it gained while they danced, his expression stony and unforgiving. Harry catches his elbow. “I meant—”

“What are you doing?” Draco asks. But words have never been Harry’s strong suit, and he can only bring himself to look into Draco’s eyes, a storm of hunger inside him. And it doesn’t matter; Draco’s confusion is artifice and he needs no explanation — he already knows. Of course he does. He shakes Harry’s hand from his arm. Jaw tight, he curdles Harry’s pitching stomach with a cold smile, and says, “I can’t.”

It trembles between them, like the bright green shimmer on the tip of a wand the beat before a curse goes flying. And then Draco turns, is swallowed by the crowd, and Harry doesn’t follow.

* * *

It only happened once, about six months after they moved in together, and four hours after narrowly escaping a curse that put half their team in Mungo’s. Or perhaps it happened twice — or five, six times, a baker’s dozen, depending on how Harry counted. Do you distinguish individual kisses by the breaths drawn between them? By how long they last, or how shattered you are at the touch of someone’s tongue against yours? Does it count as a kiss in the moments before, when they’re inhaling your shaky exhale and the air shifts to make room for your lips to slot together?

Some nights, as Harry lays alone in bed and stares at the shadows creeping across the ceiling, he can think of a million different ways to catagorise: by how many sounds they made or what kind, by the force of their hands on each other. By the looks they shared in the weeks, days, hours leading up to that moment, or by the length of Draco’s silence when Harry pulled away, when Harry said “Wait—” and “We almost died,” and “We’re friends,” and “I can’t,” but in the chaos of his own arousal, hadn’t been able to find the single word he needed: _“Yet.”_. Not even when Draco stared at him before walking away, lips swollen, fingers still tight in Harry’s hair, for a measure far longer than Harry would have needed to explain — the span of twenty kisses or more, depending on how Harry counted, and all of them gone unkissed.

* * *

The sun is up by the time Draco comes home. In a break from tradition, his arrival isn’t accompanied by an unsteady smatter of knocks on the door but the chime, of the wards falling. Though he’s unkempt and has shimmery silver lippy smearing his mouth and cheek, his neck, he’s sober and still fully dressed as he finally pulls to a stop before where Harry’s sitting on the sofa.

Waiting. 

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

Draco breaks the silence, haughty and defiant. “I took three of them tonight.”

It’s obviously meant to wound Harry, and it hits the mark; a verbal punch to his solar plexus. But Harry has experience absorbing the impact of such pain even as it vibrates through him, and he only nods. “Ah.”

“One after the other, and then the second had a friend,” Draco continues with cruel relish, “so I did those two at once.”

“Okay.”

“You fuck around, too,” Draco says, a dark cast to his face. “You’re not so pure as you like to pretend.”

“I fuck around,” Harry says. “Yeah.” It’s true. Not as often as he used to, but for the necessary release, in place of lashing out to destroy everything they’ve built and what he can’t have. Harry doesn’t think he pretends to be much of anything he isn’t but, eerily calm, acknowledges that Draco’s perception of him can be unnervingly spot-on at times, so he doesn’t object to the accusation. 

“I didn’t even use a _Tergeo_ before coming home,” Draco says with a toss of his hair away from his face, and Harry wonders how, exactly, Draco expects him to respond. 

“You never do,” Harry says.

“But you still want me. You’d fuck me _right now_. With their marks all over me, their come. The taste of it in my mouth,” Draco says. “You’d lick me clean of it if I let you, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“Pity you weren’t interested when I was,” Draco says, upper lip curling.

Harry closes his eyes. It’s agonising, the bitterness on Draco’s face, the venom Harry never thought he’d see again — far worse than the savagery of Draco’s words, the punishment he’s trying to inflict. 

“I don’t—” Harry stops. Breathes. He’s had no practice asking for things, not really; he either gets them as recompense for following orders, or he doesn’t, and what he wants has never been much more than a carrot on a stick for the use of others. He opens his eyes. “I was. I have been. For more than… But I didn’t— I didn’t know it was the only chance you’d give me.”

Draco presses his lips together. “How unfortunate for you.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, a wheezy hiccup of a sound. He presses his fingertips to his eyes under his glasses, shoulders shaking with an unhumourous laugh. “Yeah. God. Yeah.” When his fit subsides, he chances another look at Draco. “I’m sor—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Potter,” Draco says. “Stop.” He runs a hand over his face and shakes his head, before abruptly skirting around the sofa to drop onto it, close to Harry’s side. They sit, pressed tight from shoulder to thigh, for several moments, and then Draco leans his head on Harry’s shoulder and takes his hand. He smells like the shampoo that costs half his monthly pay, and three different men Harry would happily kill given the opportunity, and Harry would breathe in the scent forever if it meant Draco would always be this close.

* * *

Draco knows too many things about Harry, things Harry will never tell anyone else. Some of them have been gleaned through years of intense observation and absurdly accurate supposition: that Harry chews on his left thumbnail because he had no dummy as a baby; that he can only get his hair trimmed with magic because the sound of hair shears makes him ill. Other things, Harry shared in the middle of the night, their beds a metre apart in the Auror dorms or in their flat after Draco crawled onto Harry’s bed atop his covers, both of them unable to sleep. At first, he said them haltingly, not realising they were a test — _Can I trust you?_ — but his confidences soon became gifts, given over freely because Draco wanted to know, and because Harry had nothing else to give him:

_I guess I sleep curled up because I didn’t have much room in my cupboard._

_I miss him, I suppose. I don’t know. I’d never got to have someone like… And Dumbledore was… He did the only thing he could, but... I love him. And hate him, sometimes. Can you hate someone you love?_

_Cedric Diggory, but I didn’t really understand it until later._

_No, I wouldn’t have let him live; It’s— It has to do with The Tale of the Three Brothers; Sirius and Remus, and, and my mum and dad; small, scared; quicker and easier than falling asleep; in my trunk; in the forest; back with Dumbledore, in his tomb._

Trusting Draco was a gift Harry gave himself, and perhaps the most unlikely thing he’d ever done in his whole unlikely life. Ron and Hermione, self-deputised as Harry’s fiercest defenders, don’t understand it. But they don’t know the things about Draco that Harry does. Some of them, Harry gleaned through years of intense observation and absurdly accurate supposition: that he’s physically demonstrative but flinches when someone squeezes his right shoulder, because that was how his father used to indicate displeasure in public; that he wakes up at three-hour intervals because that’s how long his warding charms on his rooms at the Manor lasted when Voldemort was living there. Other things, Draco shared in casual asides, as though unaware of their deeply intimate nature: 

_Pass me your cup. The last thing my mother said to me was that nothing about my choices had ever shamed her or made her love me any less — but that I really needed to learn how to make a proper cup of tea on my own someday._

_Well, you asked me to clean up the letters cluttering the table so I burned the stack. As it turns out, you can very easily hate someone you love, Harry._

_Merlin, have you seen the new Chaser for the Falcons? I don’t think there was a time in my life I didn’t know I preferred men, though I spent far too long convinced I’d be forced into marriage with a woman, regardless._

_You look like shit, Potter — good thing I know how to recognise your face under a Stinging Jinx; I’m fine, Mungo’s gave me a potion and, honestly, an extended Cruciatus is nothing in comparison to what it felt like to get this thing on my arm; I only came in to discuss groceries and if you try to apologise to me ever again I’ll hex you because I'd had too much to drink and it was my mistake and, no, I’ve never said that before nor will you hear it in the future but I loathe how important you are to me so please let’s never revisit it and if you’re planning on making Shepherd’s Pie, we’ll need carrots and peas, so shall I add them to the list?_

These are Draco’s gifts to Harry, the sort of loyalty responsible for his questionable decisions, the sort of honesty that sacrifices his considerable pride. Harry loves Ron and Hermione, but there are so many things they don’t know — and among them is the fact that there’s nothing they need to defend Harry against, not when Draco is there.

* * *

It’s ten at night when Draco comes home, a scant thirty minutes after leaving. He’s not had anything to drink, that much is apparent, but it’s the only thing that is. He stands before Harry with a thunderous expression on his face, his wand held gripped at his side as though he’s considering brandishing it. Harry closes his book and puts it aside.

“What is it?”

Draco’s jaw flexes. He tosses his wand at Harry, who’s so startled he nearly fumbles the catch, and says, “How did you mean it? What did you think would happen?”

“I meant— I didn’t want it to be a reaction to something else, the first time,” Harry says, each word dragged painfully from him by the demand in Draco’s gaze. “I meant I didn’t want you to wake up and regret it, regret me. I meant that I wanted to do it right so we wouldn’t end up…” He trails off when Draco starts shaking his head.

“And the other?”

“What do you want me to say?” Harry asks, shoving up from the sofa. “That I didn’t know? That I thought— That I thought—” He’s shaking suddenly and doesn’t want to be (not with Draco, not like this), and then Draco reaches out and cups his shoulders — a steadying touch. His hair is tipped scarlet tonight, a colour Harry’s never seen him try before — a colour he said he’d never use — because _the robes are bad enough and we don’t all need to be bloody Gryffindors, Potter; doesn’t your lot get enough attention?_

“Of course it was a reaction to something else, Potter,” he says. “It was always going to be.” He locks eyes with Harry, his fingers digging into the muscles of Harry’s shoulders, fanned out and tight, his thumbs pressing hard enough against Harry’s collarbone to leave bruises. Despite that, his voice is gentle. “You fool.”

“Draco—” Harry says, and again, the infernal words won’t come; they can’t spill past the knot in his throat, which is hot and swollen with love. He’d never knew love could live there before, always thought the heart was its home. But sees now it’s everywhere, the ache in his chest overwhelmed by the sting in his eyes and the jerk of his cock, the fill of his hands as he grips Draco’s waist. It’s the relief in the ghost of Draco’s breath on his mouth before Harry takes his in a kiss, and in the kiss itself — which is a million different kisses, or words, or confessions or hopes, that all mean the same thing. 

And Draco, perceptive to the last, seems to understand; he kisses Harry back with raw violence, eschewing magic to tear at Harry’s clothes with his hands, feeding Harry a gratified snarl when Harry’s shirt is gone and his glasses with it, another when Harry’s jeans are undone, and a third when he grips Harry’s cock in a ruthless fist and finds it already damp. Harry’s knees go weak as Draco works his hand over it — _good, so good_ — and walks him backwards. He tries to strip Draco but Draco dazzles him with kiss after kiss, sucking Harry’s lip between his teeth, stroking over Harry’s tongue with his own. He brushes Harry’s hands away when Harry gets his flies open, and releases Harry to guide him around, to push him to the sofa on his knees. Harry’s lips throb at the interruption in their kiss and taste of copper when he licks them, and he twists with a groan to capture Draco’s mouth again as Draco yanks his jeans down to his thighs. From somewhere, his own pocket maybe, Draco produces lube and presses two fingers into Harry, swift and slick. He removes them just as quickly, tongue skimming over the tear on Harry’s lower lip, and then he lines up with a small grunt and breaches Harry on a long, wet, blissfully sore slide. 

There’s no discussion, no declaration. Their ragged breaths and the slap of Draco’s skin against his as he fucks Harry at a ruthless pace are the only sounds that break the silence. Clutching the back of sofa he’s held Draco on after countless other men, Harry can only push back to take it, each one of Draco’s jarring plunges into him as painful and perfect as the kiss neither one of them can seem to break. Harry gasps into Draco’s mouth and closes his eyes against the glitter of Draco’s gaze as Draco wraps a sure hand back around his stiff, leaking cock; he allows Draco’s snapping hips to control the speed of his own pumps into the fist circling him. And then Draco cries out and wrenches his mouth away to gust a shuddering, humid sob against Harry’s jaw as he comes, pulsing hot inside of Harry, every frantic stroke a sending a jolt of pleasure through him. Harry follows him over the edge with choked breath and wonders fleetingly at his own arrogance — that he ever thought he could give Draco anything that would feel more tender than this.

* * *

By midnight, they’ve showered, eaten, and taken turns sucking each other off, as frantic each time as they were before. Draco snags a bottle of wine from the kitchen and leads Harry to his room. He hasn’t stopped touching Harry, proprietary and a little disbelieving, since the tumult of their first fuck — a hand sunk into Harry’s hair when Harry went down on him, a thumb swiping a bit of mustard from the corner of Harry’s mouth after sandwiches, a slide of his palm over Harry’s arse when they walk down the hall together — and Harry doesn’t want him to. He hadn’t understood that the fever he felt at Draco’s nearness wasn’t something that needed correction before they could transition into something new, hadn’t known it was possible for that same heat to intensify and not immediately burn out without a contingency plan in place.

Draco points to the bed and watches Harry crawl to the middle, eyes flaring with interest when Harry sits back against Draco’s pillows and brings up his knees, letting them fall open. He breathes a low, aroused laugh and uncorks the wine with his wand, his steady, knowing gaze far more rousing than it ought to be when Harry’s already come twice, and when he says, “Stop being such a greedy slut for it, Potter, and give the rest of us a turn,” Harry draws in a sharp inhale. His cock, already fat, plumps harder, a bead of moisture welling at the tip. It’s the longest sentence either of them has strung together for hours, and trust Draco to make it one that turns Harry nonverbal again. 

But for some reason, the urgency between them shifts at it, lowers to a simmer. Leaving the wine to breathe, Draco climbs on the bed, his weight familiar until the shock of his straddle. Harry runs his hands over the rasp of hair on Draco’s thighs, over the taut muscles of his arse, skimming his fingers into the crevice and watching carefully for Draco’s reaction. Draco hums, his grey eyes hazy and veiled, and his thighs grow tense but he spreads them wider all the same. This time, it’s slow between them, and they find a way to talk amidst the wordless endearments of liquid sex. Draco sinks down onto Harry’s cock, drapes his arms over Harry’s shoulders, and rides him with the lazy grace of a skilled equestrian, his cock rubbing torturously against the planes of Harry’s stomach.

Draco’s mouth grazes the shell of Harry’s ear. “Did you think — _uhhh_ , no. Slower. _Yes._ — I could stop wanting you?”

“No. Yes,” Harry says, finding Draco’s rhythm, a languorous rock, and then: “ _Yes,_ f-f-f—” to the sensation of Draco’s internal muscles around him, to the feel of Draco’s smile against his mouth. He centres himself and grips the bony jut of Draco’s hips, and tries to think beyond what they’re doing. “I wanted to give you more than that.”

“Than this?” Draco asks, with another flex and a rather criminal smirk. 

Harry nods. Tilts his chin up and kisses Draco; parts his lips for the teasing fuck of Draco’s tongue. It’s hushed, measured, and closer to what Harry imagined might distinguish him from Draco’s other lovers — but no more or less exquisite than taking Draco’s prick into his mouth had been, on his knees in the shower; no more or less special than the feel of Draco fucking into him, so hard and fast he can still feel it. 

“Harry,” Draco says, stifled, against his cheek. His cock is slippery between them, pushing through the tracks of his own precome, and he increases the grind of his hips. “ _Ah,_ I’m— I—”

“Say it,” Harry says. He scrapes his teeth along the tendon at the curve of Draco’s neck. Prickles of pleasure skitter up the tops of his thighs, his balls drawing tight.

Draco edges back just enough to send Harry a distracted sort of scowl and says, “Fuck you, Potter, and make me— uhh, make me— come.”

And Harry does — finding out, in the process, that it’s possible to climax with a laugh falling from your throat. Finding out, in the process, that love can live somewhere like that, too.

* * *

They’ve shared sunrises before. On patrol, in their dorms. When one of them can’t sleep alone for the nightmares. And before: Draco’s pale ash-streaked face watching from the crowd as the sun crested the horizon and Harry used Draco’s wand to claim another. But this morning is different; this morning, things have changed.

Or maybe they changed two years ago, or two years before that, or the morning Draco’s wand saved them both, or the night Draco refused to name him. It doesn’t really matter; Harry’s long defined himself, at least in part, in reference to Draco, has been Draco’s— _something_ for more than half his life with the sort of devotion that, fortunately, allowed for new dimensions. And when Draco stirs beside him, Harry finds his voice, rough with sleep though it is. 

“I’m yours,” Harry says, “and I don’t want anyone but you.” 

“I want all of it,” he says. 

“Even if it ruins everything,” he says. 

Draco blinks and lifts his head, looks around. He’s got a pillow crease on one cheek, the side of his mouth shiny with saliva. He mumbles, “Where the fuck did my sheets go?” and drops his head back to Harry’s shoulder with a grunt.

Harry looks at Draco’s bed hangings, a toile pattern in rich navys and silvers depicting a wizarding home being built, and runs his hand down the line of Draco’s back. Traces the rungs of Draco’s ribcage. 

“It won’t ruin anything,” Draco says without lifting his head. He yawns into Harry’s shoulder, wipes his drool off on Harry’s skin. “Don’t be stupid.” 

“Tell me you love me,” Harry says, studying his face. He doesn’t really need to hear it, but wants Draco to keep talking. 

Draco cracks one eye open. He smiles, tired and wry, and pauses for the length of a kiss — one that Harry takes. 

“Harry,” Draco says when he pulls away, “I’ve been telling you for years.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are lovely. 
> 
> Also, I'm on [tumblr](https://bixgirl1.tumblr.com/) now! *waves*  
> (And so is [shifty!](https://shiftylinguini.tumblr.com/))  
> <3


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